This Year's Nobel Peace Prize: Two Very Worthy Recipients

Throughout history there are Christians who chose to run into the brokenness, not away from it. And one just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

It's "Nobel Season," the week-long period when the winners of the Nobel Prizes are announced. Most of us have to take the Academy at its word when it says that the winners in fields such as physics, chemistry, and medicine and physiology are worthy of the honor.

Nobel - Peace - Prize - Ordinary - People

But the Nobel Peace Prize? That's different. Ordinary, informed people can recognize questionable winners—no, I'm not to going cite any examples—and, more importantly, deserving honorees.

Murad - Yezidi - Woman - ISIS - Escape

Murad is a Yezidi woman who was enslaved by ISIS and repeatedly raped and tortured. After a near-miraculous escape, she made her way to Germany, where she campaigned against what the Nobel Committee called "the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," in the Middle East and around the world.

Murad's remarkable and inspiring story befits a remarkable and inspiring woman.

Recipient - Dr - Denis - Mukwege - Surgeon

The other recipient is Dr. Denis Mukwege, a surgeon from the Congo.

To understand Mukwege's story, you need to know a little about the recent history of the Congo and central Africa more generally. In 1996, Rwanda invaded the eastern part of the Congo. While the ostensible reason was to eradicate the remaining forces responsible for the Rwandan genocide two years earlier, that reason was soon forgotten in what came to be called "Africa's World War."

Countries - Militias - Control - Part - Congo

Nine countries and twenty-five militias fought for control of all or part of the Congo and its mineral riches. By 2008, an estimated 5.4 million people had died, and countless women had been sexually assaulted as a military tactic.

While control of the Congolese government is no longer in doubt, an enduring legacy of the conflicts in the region is...